WELCOME! to the homepage for the Spring 2007 Astrophysics Seminar. The topic for the seminar is nominally the formation of supermassive black holes, but since absolutely nothing is known observationally about that the scope has been widened somewhat to include also observational constraints and theories of black hole growth. There will be two overview lectures by the organizers, plus weekly presentations by one or two students. To encourage discussion and informality, the use of PowerPoint or laptops is banned and presentations should be brief - 20-30 minutes long at most. Grades will be based, as usual, on our subjective evaluation of the quality of presentations and extent of class participation.

SCHEDULE: Apart from Rees et al. (1982), all of the suggested papers are available via ADS provided that you have a university IP address

Instructors: Phil Armitage & Mitch Begelman